


Five Stages of Grief

by savorvrymoment



Category: The Used
Genre: Depression, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 14:37:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5420834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savorvrymoment/pseuds/savorvrymoment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, & Acceptance:  ~And ‘shit happens’ is something you say when your dishwasher stops working, or when you accidentally put a rip in your favorite shirt, or when you break your instrument on stage – not when someone who’s been an integral part of your life simply walks out of it.~  Old one-shot moved from livejournal.  Written for The Used fic exchange in 2008</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Stages of Grief

**1.  Denial**

 

Dan understands how it is.  Loosing a bandmate is never easy; he’s seen it enough to know.  It leaves broken friendships, fear, uncertainty, and that one huge question:  Is the band going to make it through this?

He calls Jepha as soon as the news gets around to him, about two weeks after Branden’s ‘official’ departure.  It rings five times before he gets Jepha’s voicemail, (‘Hey, it’s Jepha!  I don’t know where I am right now.  Leave a message!’), and once he’s gotten past the beep, he leaves a message asking Jepha to just call him back, or have one of the other guys call him, or something… 

Jepha calls him back four days later, long enough for Dan to begin worrying over what little bit of sanity they all have left.  “Hey.  S’up?” Jepha asks, voice quiet but otherwise normal. 

“Hey.  Heard about Branden a while ago,” Dan says, sprawled out in the back of a tour bus.  “Everyone okay?”

“Oh, yeah, everything’s fine,” Jepha says.  Something beeps in the background, maybe a microwave.  Dan realizes that they would all be home right now, considering. 

“Really?” Dan asks. 

“Yeah,” Jepha answers.  “We’re going back into the studio for a bit, soon.  Bert’s been talking about hiring a studio drummer for now, just to get through the record.  Then, you know, we’ll find someone to go out on the road.” 

Dan doesn’t answer, mostly because he’s sort of shocked at the man’s demeanor.  Not that he’d expected Jepha to be wallowing in a sea of self-pity, but…  Jepha eventually says, “We’ll get through it.  Shit happens.”

And ‘shit happens’ is something you say when your dishwasher stops working, or when you accidentally put a rip in your favorite shirt, or when you break your instrument on stage – not when someone who’s been an integral part of your life simply walks out of it. 

Unless, of course, you’re trying to smooth over the fact that you’d like to sit in your bathtub and cry for a couple of weeks. 

But on the other hand, that scenario seems so un-Jepha-like that Dan’s not really sure what to think. 

Then Jepha’s talking about this crazy new Japanese film he’s found, and how Zelda chewed up a pair of his sneakers the other day, and Branden seems to be forgotten about. 

Yeah, Dan figures.  Shit does happen.

 

**2.  Anger**

 

Dan’s drumming deal is already on the table when Jepha seems to recognize that, indeed, something is wrong. 

Dan’s at the studio, listening to the final tracks being laid down and helping out where he can, and he watches as Jepha slowly begins to retreat into a state of perpetual irritation.  It’s something that’s hard to notice at first, just little uncharacteristic behaviors that pop up.  He stops invading everyone’s personal space, stops trying to crack his ridiculously flat jokes, stops running his mouth like a damn woman…

Then, one day toward the end of recording, Dan walks in on Jepha and Quinn in the break room.  They’re both at each other’s throats, unrelenting and just cruel.  Dan comes to a stop just inside the door, a little too shocked to even process the situation and therefore walk away.  Bert sits on the couch, watching the whole scenario in awe. 

“Look, all I’m saying…!” Quinn snarls, but he can’t get a word in edgewise. 

“What are we doing, anyway?” Jepha snaps, pointing a finger accusingly into Quinn’s chest.  “Is this a band?  Or is this Quinn and his bitches?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Quinn hisses, and he’s just tall enough to tower menacingly over Jepha.  “You know I’m just trying to move forward.  You can’t just…”

“No, no,” Jepha interrupts.  “I certainly can.  What exactly are you going to do now, anyway?!  You going to fucking throw me out behind Branden?”

And then it’s suddenly very quiet, or at least until Bert makes a funny little noise, something close to a strangled giggle. 

Quinn doesn’t shove him, or hit him, or do anything remotely violent.  He just turns and leaves, flicking Jepha off as he goes.  He shoulders past Dan on his way out the door, and Jepha watches him go, obviously fuming. 

“Fuck this,” Jepha says momentarily, and leaves the room as well, heading in the opposite direction as Quinn. 

The air seems to hang in the balance afterwards, and time crawls before it all catches up.  The room still feels tight, even with both Quinn and Jepha gone. 

“What was that about?” Dan asks eventually.  Bert leaps up from the couch, pulling up his sagging shorts. 

“Oh, nothing,” he answers, shrugging.  He takes Dan’s arm as he heads through the door, pulling him back into the entrance. “Jepha’s just on his period,” he whispers conspiratorially, laughing loud and high-pitched as he lets go of Dan.  He bangs through the door to the outside, grabbing a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket as he goes, and Dan considers the whole situation for a moment before following him out. 

Things are a little hostile between Quinn and Jepha after that, but it slowly works itself out.  A week later, Jepha’s sitting in the recording booth banging clashing notes out on his bass instead of running through a take, and Quinn’s sitting outside the booth bopping his head and putting up the horns.  Feldman sits next to Quinn looking increasingly impatient, and Dan’s left wondering what exactly happened in the first place. 

  

**3.  Bargaining**

 

It’s a hotel night, about a month and a half into Taste of Chaos.  Dan’s rooming with Jepha, and they’re both somewhere between buzzed and drunk, definitely stoned, plenty enough to loosen tongues.  They spend the better part of five minutes tying Jepha’s hair into this ridiculous ponytail, and then another five minutes in drunken laughter as Jepha flails his head around for effect, black hair slowly falling out of the hairband.  Then, after that fun has run out, Dan flops back on the bed, feeling the bed springs jump underneath him as Jepha continues his bouncing. 

The bed suddenly stills, and when Dan opens his eyes and turns his head, he finds Jepha staring down at him silently, eyes shining a strange color in the lamplight. 

“You ever fucked a guy?” Jepha asks, deathly serious, and Dan just stares for a moment before his lips quirk up into a grin. 

“I dunno,” he says, and Jepha smirks at him.  “What’s the answer you want to hear?”  Which of course is a redundant question, and so he follows it up with, “How ‘bout you?  You ever fucked a guy?”

Which is also a redundant question considering it’s Jepha, a man who owns a pin reading ‘I <3 Cock.’ 

“Yeah,” Jepha answers, laughing after he says it.  “Well, sort of.  Other way around.  Ha,” he adds, blushing just the tiniest bit.  Dan can’t help but chuckle. 

Jepha sobers quickly, though, and says, “Me and Branden.  We used to fuck some - a lot - all the time…” 

Dan doesn’t comment, and he’s not even that surprised. 

Jepha eventually lies down on his back next to Dan, staring up at the ceiling.  “You never answered me,” he points out.

“Does it really matter?” Dan asks, but concedes when Jepha flops his head over to glare at him.  “Okay, okay.  Yeah, just a few times.”

Jepha smiles a bit, tiny.  “Ever thought about doing it again?” he asks, too innocently, and if Dan had any doubts before, they’re squashed with that one question. 

“If you want to, why don’t you just ask?” he says, and watches with a smirk as Jepha blushes scarlet.  Dan pushes himself up and throws a leg over Jepha’s body, staring down at him.  Jepha meets his gaze for a few seconds before reaching up for a kiss, but Dan turns his head to the side.  Jepha hums unhappily when he only meets stubble, and Dan pushes himself up just a tiny bit more.  “What do you want?” Dan asks. 

“Come here.  Dan, please,” Jepha says, already the tiniest bit breathless, expectant and aroused. 

“What do you _want_?” Dan repeats, staring down at black hair and dark eyes and snakebites, and he’s suddenly wholly aware of just how fucking _pretty_ Jepha is. 

“Please, Dan,” he says, threading his fingers through the back of Dan’s hair and pulling.  A hectic blush is once again rising in his cheeks, but he eventually says, “Please, just, fuck me.  Please.”

And so Dan does.  He bends him over on the bed, and Jepha moans into a pillow while Dan holds his hips hard enough to bruise.  Jepha’s been here before, Dan can definitely tell.  He would have been able to tell even if Jepha hadn’t admitted to it. 

He tries his luck toward the end with a couple of solid smacks across Jepha’s ass, and Jepha keens, fingernails digging into the bedsheets.  Jepha tenses soon thereafter, coming over his own hand, and Dan follows right behind him, pressing his face in between tattooed shoulder blades.    

They don’t talk about it afterwards.  Jepha gets up and lets himself into the bathroom, and Dan pulls off the condom and flings it into the trash bin.  Once Jepha comes back, they lie down facing away from each other – Dan toward the window, Jepha toward the wall – and Dan wonders vaguely if things will be awkward in the morning. 

They aren’t, by some stretch of the imagination.  Jepha’s just Jepha - bouncy and a little ridiculous - except that he seems to be in somewhat higher spirits.  Dan’s not really sure if it’s real, or if it’s something Dan’s just seeing because he knows what’s happened, but regardless, a good lay never hurt anyone. 

In the end, Jepha seems to share a similar attitude.  They have quite a few more good lays while finishing up the tour, and even though Dan begins to realize that he’s standing in as a substitute for something else, for someone else, he lets the whole thing be. 

And while he’s not sure the sentiment is something he even wants to recognize, the fact remains:  He loves Jepha, even if sometimes Jepha doesn’t love him.

 

**4.  Depression**

 

It hits Jepha like a Mack truck just a few days before they leave for the college tour. 

He’s not the textbook case.  Jepha doesn’t start moping around, doesn’t lose interest in his friends and the band and the parties.  He doesn’t necessarily even appear to be upset about anything. 

But Dan’s never seen him so _tired_. 

He spends all day in this act:  bouncy, energetic, silly, falsely happy.  When it all comes to an end, though, he just fucking crashes.  On bus nights, he slips into his bunk as soon as he possibly can, and while Dan thinks he’s just hiding at first, it quickly becomes apparent that he goes out like a light as soon as his head hits the pillow. 

Jepha stops wanting to fuck on hotel nights.  He gets in, puts his stuff down, takes a shower, and goes to sleep.  Dan will usually sit up and watch TV for a while, too wound up from the day to fall asleep right away, but more often than not he finds himself watching Jepha instead of the television.  He wants a way to comfort him, to try and bring him back to the Jepha that Dan knew when Dan was part of New Transit, watching it all from the outside.   

Dan doesn’t press him about the sex.  After all, it’s not as though Dan can’t get some elsewhere if he really wanted to, and he and Jepha weren’t in any sort of relationship or anything.  It was just casual sex (or so Dan tells himself) and it simply isn’t a big deal. 

Then, after the second to last show before heading to Japan, Jepha is on him before Dan can even set his bag down.  Dan doesn’t think about it at first; he just throws his stuff on the floor and pulls Jepha’s wiry body close, kissing him long, wet, and dirty.  He keeps one arm wrapped around his torso but fists the other in that long pitch-black hair, tugging at it like Jepha likes, and Jepha writhes against him, already breathless and starting to grind up against him. 

It isn’t until Jepha pulls away and yanks his own shirt off that Dan thinks - _whoa, wait, what?_

He turns his head to the side when Jepha rushes back to him and reaches for a kiss, and Jepha makes that aggravated noise he makes whenever he’s denied something in bed.  “What?” Dan says, once again fisting a hand in his hair and pulling, this time hard enough to pull Jepha off his neck.  “Nothing for – how long?  Months?  And now…  What the hell?”  And then, a soft laugh to take the sting away.  “What am I?  Your own live sex toy?”

Jepha looks a bit flabbergasted at this, as though this had never crossed his mind.  “It’s been months?” he asks, and Dan thinks – _or as if he hadn’t been aware how long it’d been since we last had sex._  

“Yeah.  Months,” Dan replies, raising an eyebrow.  “Dude, you’ve sort of checked out on us, seems like.  Everything okay?”  Even though Dan already knows the answer to that is ‘no.’ 

“I…” Jepha says, frowning.  “I dunno.  I think there’s something wrong with me.”

He turns at that, as though he thinks the conversation is over, but Dan catches his arm before he can bend down and pick up his discarded travel bag.  Jepha looks up, startled, and Dan wonders why.  “I don’t think this conversation is over,” he says, and it comes out sterner than he was expecting. 

“What do you want?” Jepha asks, but he just sounds tired, like he wants to know what Dan wants so he can appease him and then lay down. 

“I want…” Dan says, but then realizes he’s not really sure what he wants.  “You’re right,” he eventually says, letting go of the other man.  “There is something wrong – but Jepha.  _Jepha._ We’re all right here, man.  You don’t have to do this to yourself.”

Jepha stares at him for what seems like hours, even though Dan knows it’s just a few seconds.  “It’s been a year and a half.  I should – I dunno,” he says eventually, scrubbing his hands over his face.  Then – “I was with him since I was seventeen,” he says, eyes suddenly wide and glassy.  “It never occurred to me that he wouldn’t be around…”

Dan reels from the new information, but still manages to ask, “Have you talked to him since?”

“I called him once,” Jepha says.  “I got his voice mail.  Left a message.  He never called me back.”  Then, after a pause, “Regardless of what everyone says about it, we didn’t part on good terms.  The whole band, that is.  It was a –  We screwed him over, even though the Rancid thing worked out.  There was no guarantee at the time, though.  There was no guarantee he wasn’t going to be working as a tech after a few months…”

Dan nods, but he isn’t really sure how to respond. 

“Can I go to bed now?” Jepha asks, and Dan just nods again, watching as he disappears into the bathroom. 

 

**5.  Acceptance**

 

They all come back home to begin the next record. 

The new music seems to breathe new life into Jepha.  He smiles easier and truer when he’s sitting behind his bass, fingers strumming away, talking to Quinn about key changes and tempo changes and all those little details that Dan usually ignores.  After all, he’s a drummer for a reason. 

Jepha follows Dan out to his car in mid-June, a little after nine at night, and says, “Can I take you somewhere?  I want to talk.  To you…”

Dan smirks.  “Sounds like you’re trying to proposition me.”

“No.  I…” Jepha says, but he blushes just the tiniest bit anyway.  “I just want to talk.  About what’s been happening.”

“Yeah,” Dan says eventually.  “There’s a Starbucks down the road.  Coffee?”

Jepha nods, and they both pile into Dan’s car and head off. 

Thirty minutes later, Dan’s sitting in the passenger seat with Jepha on top of him, facing him, leaning back on the dashboard.  Jepha’s head keeps hitting the windshield whenever he forgets to hold himself up, but he doesn’t seem to mind all that much.  In fact, his back is curled in an impossible arch, one hand splayed out on top of the dash and the other slipping and sliding across the fogged up window, and Dan’s certain he’s never seen anything as perfect as this. 

“ _Fuck_ , Jepha,” Dan says, fingers digging into the soft, fleshy part of his waist, holding him up best he can.  “Fuck, you’re…”

“You feel so good,” Jepha breathes back without missing a beat.  “Dan.  _Dan_ …”

And as cliché as the whole thing is, Dan’s positive he’s never heard the man call him by his name, not during sex. 

Dan comes first, but when he’s finished he pulls Jepha to him, drapes Jepha’s body over him, and jerks him off between them.  They lean their foreheads together, breathing into each other’s mouths, and when Jepha starts to come, his jaw falls slack and his breath comes out in a slow moan.  Dan takes hold of his bottom lip with his teeth and pulls, sucks, and savors the way the whole thing melts into a lover’s kiss as Jepha starts to come down from his orgasm. 

“I’ve been shitting on you,” Jepha says eventually, their bodies still tangled together in the front seat. 

“Well, that’s one way to put it,” Dan says, grinning a little.  “You do know how to put things all fancy like.  Keeping it all in the moment.”

Jepha laughs, soft and a little embarrassed.  “I’m not sure why you’ve put up with me this long,” he says.

Dan has to think his reply over, but he ultimately comes up with, “Shit happens…”

Jepha laughs truer this time.  “Yeah.  Mr. Eloquent over here…”

Dan pinches his side where he’s ticklish, and then smiles as Jepha wriggles around in his lap.  “We could try this,” Dan says, because one of them has to. 

“Yeah,” Jepha says, settling.  “Yeah, we could.  We should.”

Dan nods, and he’s sure he hasn’t ever smiled so wide in his life.  “Come on.  Let’s go home.”

He doesn’t specify whose home, but he feels it’s fairly obvious considering they’re both in his car.  Jepha seems to understand, anyway.  Jepha smiles, leans in for one last kiss, then says, “Yeah.  Just let me put my pants back on.”

Dan laughs, wiggling out of Jepha’s way, and thinks, _Yes.  We should.  We will._

_ Yes.  _

 


End file.
